Paul Walker’s death in a fiery high-speed car crash raises some tough PR questions for Universal. Universal already had a “do as I say, not as I do” PSA starring Walker in the can. As of this morning, the PSA had only 16,593 views on YouTube. Should Universal promote that PSA harder? Make more Walker PSAs?

Google Catalog. Google Wave. Google Answers. They’re all part of the Google graveyard, online platforms that the Web giant rolled out in the last several years but ultimately shutdown. However, Google+, which launched in 2011, has been a raging success, now ranking as the second-largest social networking site in the world after Facebook. So how can PR folks leverage Google+?

Millennials are a much sought-after demo by communicators, but they’re not an easy bunch to nail down. In 2008 and 2012, the Obama presidential campaign wisely targeted Millennials (born between the early 1980s and the… Continued

Ten years ago, the media world was a very different place. The Web was experiencing growing pains and social networks Facebook and YouTube were not yet in their infancy. In PR precincts there was more change in the last decade than probably the previous three decades. So what does the next ten years hold in store for communicators?

We’re all going “native” now. The Interactive Advertising Bureau Wednesday is scheduled to release a white paper on so-called “native advertising,” or branded content, at the same time that the Federal Trade Commission is starting to hold daylong town hall hearings on the matter. Communicators should pay careful attention.

“Tell it first and tell it fast.” That’s the absolute journalistic rule for those reporting on a headline-grabbing event like this week’s fatal Metro-North train derailment in Spuyten Duyvil, N.Y. For PR professionals, specifically crisis managers, getting swiftly ahead of such a story while controlling potentially damaging details is of paramount importance.

Organizers of a movement demanding a $15-an-hour wage for fast-food workers say they will sponsor one-day strikes in 100 cities on Thursday. It’s debatable whether wage strikes have a negative impact on the bottom line. But PR pros certainly need a strategy in place to respond to such protests and potential crises.